Assuming you're not only interested in the US [was: UK, a typo!]
Anecdotally (that is, I have only vaguely remembered second-hand knowledge of specific companies that have come out and said "we only take people with degrees from...", but it's a thing "everyone knows") it's common here, where the favoured group of universities is usually the Russell Group, plus or minus a few depending on context.
What's definitely observably true is that many good employers only actively recruit from certain places. That's obviously an advantage of being there even if applicants from other places aren't automatically rejected.
However: I have never heard of a university auto-rejecting applicants for graduate places based on where they come from, so if graduate study is a firm intention, it may matter less. (Disclaimer: I mean places in the same country, or countries the institution is familiar with. If an applicant is from an obscure university in a country noone in the institution is familiar with, it might be very hard indeed for them to get to seem like a good bet for a PhD place. And of course there are still advantages to having done a first degree in a research-strong place; I only mean that not having done so wouldn't automatically rule you out as it apparently can outside academia.)
Last edited by ColinsMum; 06/28/14 09:58 AM.
